Gout
by Connie Nervegas
Summary: Bakugo and Kirishima's friendship is tested by excessive uric acid intake and repressed feelings.


_This is my first My Hero Academia story. Be gentle. _

It all started when Bakugo was sent to the grocery store to buy a pound of ground beef for dinner. He screamed that it was beneath him and ordered her to do it herself, but she told him to take his worthless ass to the store or she wouldn't feed him. Then she hit him over the head with a frying pan. Luckily, his hair absorbed most of the impact and he just went off grumbling with money and his fists in his pockets.

Normally, he would have picked out the best kind of beef but felt like buying something really low quality like ground chuck or with 30% fat content just to stick it to his mother but changed his mind when he realized he would be cooking and eating this meal most likely. He picked up a pound of premium ground beef and blinked at it for a second.

On the label of Red Ribbon Meats ground beef posed a model with bright red hair styled into spikes and little horns, big eyes and sharp teeth in a huge grin. It said "Red Riot Approved" under the label and said it had the endorsement of one of U.A. High School's top student. Kirishima was a good guy and he liked him but it was a very big stretch to say he was in the top of his class. He tried to beat information to pass an exam literally over his head and he still failed. He found himself crushing the frozen meat in his hand and it cracked under the strain as if it were glass. He threw it down with disgust, then picked it up again. He should buy it so he could have the label. He would need it to interrogate Kirishima about how he got a product endorsement. Bakugo won the sport's festival, even if he didn't deserve it so he should get the first product endorsement! He realized he didn't want to bring a stinky meat label to class so he settled for taking a picture of the numerous smiling Kirishimas in the meat selection and grabbed a cheaper pound of ground meat.

As he headed towards the cash register he had a sudden realization that maybe other U.A. students had product endorsements. What could they be? Ponytail Girl and Big Hands already had done a commercial on their internship, after all. He tried to think of a product that made sense and checked the condoms for pictures of Mineta, but didn't find anything.

After he got home and finished eating dinner he sat on the couch next to his father as they watched the nightly news. Bakugo scowled at the picture of Kirishima smiling on the meat packet while the reporter asked everyone who had seen a man with mucus dripping from all his pores to call the poison control center immediately. But as soon as they cut to a commercial, there was Red Riot promoting meat again and this time he was actually gobbling up a steak in his hero costume. Bakugo threw the remote at the television and his father sighed, but didn't react any further. "FUCKING SHITTY-HAIR! NOBODY WILL EAT MEAT IF HIS STUPID FACE IS ON IT! WE'RE GOING TO BE VEGETARIANS!"

His mother screamed from the other room, "DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO WITH MY OWN MONEY! GET A JOB AND THEN YOU CAN FUCKING TELL US WHAT WE EAT! GO DO YOUR HOMEWORK!"

Bakugo had already done his homework before he went home for the weekend and spent the rest of the evening texting Sero and Kaminari about Red Ribbon Meats' new representative. Kaminari suggested that Bakugo could be the spokesperson for explosives or anger management classes. Bakugo went to bed without responding.

* * *

Even though Bakugo was especially hungry at lunch time he couldn't bring himself to eat anything with meat because he kept picturing Kirishima's smiling cheerful fucking face every time he looked at a hamburger patty on the lunch cart. When he sat down, by himself, in the furthest corner of the cafeteria, he saw Koda pass by with a silent look of approval at his vegetarian lunch choices and he shouted, "STOP LOOKING AT MY FOOD BEFORE I CUT YOUR HEAD OFF AND EAT YOU!"

Kirishima, Kaminari and Sero sat at his table and he growled like a territorial mount lion, but they all ignored him.

"Why do you have nothing but meat in your lunch bag?" Kaminari asked as Kirishima pulled out sausage patties, hamburger patties, a steak and meatballs out of a lunch box.

Sero made a face and asked, "Yeah do you want some meat with your meat?"

"I got a year's supply of free meat from Red Ribbon Meats because I'm their representative now! It's so cool! It's like a dream come true! I'm a hero AND I can eat all the meat that I want."

"I don't want to hear about your fucking meat, Kirishima! Shut up before I strangle you with your own meatballs, fuckstick!" Bakugo angrily munched on a carrot and wished it were Kirishima's steak.

Kirishima laughed. "I'd like to see you try!"

Bakugo looked at his phone because it sounded like Kirishima sort of did want him to try to strangle him with a meatball and he wasn't sure how to take it.

"They said they liked how tough I looked when I fought Bakugo at the sport's festival and that I have sharp teeth like a predator!" He proudly bared his teeth and looked more like an excited puppy that an a ravenous monster.

Bakugo pounded a fist on the table in irritation. "That isn't predatory! You have to let them know that you'll murder them and then eat their hearts if they don't eat your fucking stupid meat!" He leaned forward in Kirishima's face across the table and said in his most threatening voice, "IF YOU DON'T EAT THIS I'M GOING TO BLOW YOUR ASS TO FUCKING HELL YOU FUCKING DIPSHIP CONSUMER!"

He noticed Deku leaving the lunch line a few feet away and jumped with fright at the sound of Bakugo's voice, dropping his milk carton.

Kaminari leaned back in his chair and fall backwards with his feet sticking up over the edge of the lunch table. "That was scary, Bakugo! What meat do you sell! I promise I'll buy it!"

Bakugo didn't acknowledge Kaminari's stupidity.

"Hey are we going to have our horror movie weekend, Bakugo?" Kirishima asked enthusiastically with a mouthful of meatloaf. "I've been looking forward to it! I mean, not really. But I have!"

He sighed and finished off his unfulfilling vegetarian wrap, now a bit jealous of Kirishima's meat platter. "That makes no fucking sense. If you don't want to come, then just fucking don't!"

"Oh I want to come! I know you're a big horror buff and I want to go through your special training so that I'm scared of horror movies anymore. A real man is never afraid, especially when it's something that isn't even real!"

Kaminari rolled over to get back on his feet and blocked the line of students waiting to pass by their table for a full minute as he got to his feet and put his chair back onto its legs. Finally he sat down and said, "Really? Slumber party! I'll bring the popcorn!"

Bakugo threw his napkin at Kaminari's face but it just wafted in the wake of hungry students passing the table and landed on the floor. "Did I fucking invite you! It's just me and Kirishima!"

Sero raised an eyebrow and looked over at Kirishima, who had his cheeks full of food, smiling happily. "Really," Sero asked. "Another sleepover with just Kirishima? I thought you didn't like having people over. Or doing… I don't know… stuff."

"I do it to shut him up so he won't keep asking! How about I invite your face to get killed! Dumbass fuckstick!"

They spent the next fifteen minutes watching Kaminari ask random girls who passed their table out on dates. Only one accepted and Sero said that she probably needed an alibi for a crime she was about to commit because he couldn't see why she would agree to go out with him otherwise.

Kirishima pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pants pocket and read it over as Kaminari protested that the girl didn't need an alibi. She needed some expert loving.

"What's that?" Bakugo asked Kirishima, noticing that Kirishima had little beads of sweat on his forehead and a rather haunted expression.

"Oh it's just the stuff that my new agent wants me to do. She wants me to start wearing better deodorant and date someone from the hero course. She said it can be fake dating but just that I should be seen in public on dates with another hero and then be really shady about it. I don't like it. It doesn't manly to pretend to date someone you don't care about just to trick people. But I do need to work more on my hero image…"

Bakugo's stomach growled with malcontent as he narrowed his eyes. "That sounds like utter bullshit! What the hell do they care about if you stink or go on dates if you win fights and shit! That's what being a hero is! Like Best Jeanist said all that image crap to me too but I didn't listen to it because nobody makes me do what I don't want to!"

"I thought you were allergic to the hair gel he gave you," Kaminari said as he stole a meatball from Kirishima and immediately dropped it on the floor.

Kirishima's phone pinged with a text and his eyes opened wide with shock as he read the message. "Oh no! My agent wants me to go out for dinner Saturday night with another girl she represents who is in the hero track at Shiketsu High School! But that's our horror movie weekend!"

Bakugo snatched Kirishima's phone with rage brimming over and leaking out into his fingers as he rage texted Kirishima's agent. "This is Kirishima's BEST FRIEND AND HE IS NOT GOING ON SOME FORCED BULLSHIT DATE SO YOU CAN MAKE MONEY OFF HIM ASSHOLE HE'S ALREADY GOT PLANS GO DIE!" He threw the phone down on the table and huffed like an angry bull on steroids.

Kirishima winced as he read Bakugo's response. "Well… I was going to tell her I had plans already dude… You didn't have to tell her to die though…" He sighed with relief and put his phone back in his pocket.

Kaminari smirked at Kirishima as he put one end of his phone cord into his phone and the other into his mouth, then spoke somewhat unintelligibly as he tried not to let too much drool flow out around his lips as they grasped the cord in his mouth. "So Kirishima has another hot date already?! You go, dude! Hey! You should share! I'm dateless here and you had TWO dates! That's so selfish!" He spat drool all over Sero's face as he spoke.

"He's coming home with me, dumbass!" Bakugo said pounding a fist on the table, causing everyone's chop sticks to hop off the table. "Why does it mean he had a date just because I said he had fucking plans!"

Kirishima flinched and hunched his shoulders.

"He turned down a date to go with you…? Kirishima, did you hit your head when Yaoyorozu hit you with that discus during training yesterday afternoon?" Sero asked as he mopped Kaminari's saliva off his cheek.

Bakugo ground his teeth. He never really invited his middle school friends over to hang out at his house but they were pretty boring and mostly wanted to go to the arcade or boring things like that. Kaminari and Sero reminded him of his middle school friends. Irritating guys who followed him around because they knew he was tough and popular and that they could just follow in his wake and benefit from it. Kirishima… Well he didn't know about Kirishima but he was different. He watched Kirishima scraping fat off a steak bone with his hardened arms, then wiping the fat off on a napkin that was quickly saturated and looked around in confusion because he nothing else nearby to clean his hands. Yeah… Kirishima sure was different.

* * *

Bakugo walked home from school with Kirishima. Kirishima told him a long story about a kid he'd known in elementary school whose quirk allowed him to shrink. One day the kids dared him to shrink smaller than a grain of rice. He shrank and shrank until they couldn't see him and nobody ever saw him again. The teachers held grief counseling with the students because they decided he must have gone subatomic and was now the size of an atom. Bakugo rolled his eyes, while trying not to laugh. "What a moron! That sounds like the most useless quirk!"

"Yeah some aren't that useful I guess. I didn't think my quirk was all that useful at first. It just kind of ripped up my stuffed animals and I cut my own eye," Kirishima said as they turned into the driveway of the Bakugo house. "But I worked on it and now! I'm going to be a hero!" He grinned and smashed his fists together loudly. A dog in the next yard barked in response. Kirishima looked around with bared sharp teeth and for a second Bakugo thought he might bark back.

"Come on, puppy," Bakugo said as he unlocked the door and turned on the light. "My parents went to an opera. I was going to go at first because Wagner is pretty loud and badass until I found out he was Hitler's favorite composer and I thought fuck that Nazi ass shit!"

Kirishima took off his shoes. Bakugo puts his mangy red crocs out on the doorstep so he wouldn't have to smell his dirty feet.

Bakugo heard the first few notes of Iron Man by Black Sabbath play from Kirishima's phone and he gave a little polite bow to Bakugo to excuse himself from the room and took a few steps away, then spoke into the phone twice as loudly as he did in normal conversation. Well so much for privacy, Bakugo though. Kirishima yelled into the phone, "TETSUTETSU! MY PHONE HAS REALLY BAD RECEPTION AT BAKUGO'S HOUSE! HOW ARE YOU, DUDE!? I WAS JUST ABOUT TO CALL YOU! DUDE! WHAT?! OH YEAH! I REPRESENT MEAT! IT'S AWESOME! I HAVEN'T EATEN A VEGETABLE IN A WEEK! HOW IS THE STEEL THING GOING?! OH NO! WHAT?! WHAT THE HELL IS A TARIFF?! I'LL CALL YOU LATER!"

Kirishima sighed and reapproached Bakugo. "I'd tell you what that was about but I think it was private…"

Bakugo bit the inside of his lip to hide his amusement. What a dumbass. At least he was a well-meaning dumbass.

"Oh hey! I brought dinner!" Kirishima said with a big smile as he pulled off his backpack, unzipped it and pulled out a bag of hotdogs. "My mom said I need to give some of them away because she's sick of eat them."

Bakugo raised an eyebrow at the hotdogs. He'd planned on making a quick dinner but boiling hotdogs would take less time. "Well we can have salad with it to take away some of the calories I guess."

"Oh... okay..." He couldn't help but notice the disappointed tone.

"What? You don't want to eat my cooking?!" Bakugo asked, instantly alarmed that Kirishima didn't trust him to cook. "You can go cook these yourself then!"

Kirishima sat on the arm of the couch and took off one of his red crocs, and rubbed his foot with a mildly pained expression. "My feet must have gained weight. I don't mean I don't want you to cook! And of course you can cook. You're good at everything. It's just that I don't eat vegetables that much. You know?"

"Well you'll never be a hero if you die of a heart attack, dumbass! You need to eat right or you won't bulk up and you won't be able to compete!" Bakugo grabbed the bag of hotdogs and made a dinner within ten minutes, leaving Kirishima to his own devices in the living room. He stood at the kitchen counter, putting dressing on the salads, when he heard Kirishima clear his throat behind him. He nearly dropped the salad dressing bottle in surprise. "EH!? I nearly broke this! What do you want?!"

"Oh I thought you forgot about me! Wow! That didn't take you long at all! Good job!" He raised a hand to give a high five.

Bakugo sighed at the enthusiastic lameness, but returned his high five. "Any idiot should be able to cook. How do you survive on your own?"

"My mom cooks," Kirishima said as he poked in some drawers for cutlery and pulled out a few pairs of chopsticks.

"Eat salad with a fork!" Bakugo admonished.

"Why...? I can eat salad with chopsticks! If I can eat rice with chopsticks I bet I can eat a salad!" He pointed himself proudly with his thumb.

"Have you ever eaten a salad?" Bakugo asked as he took the plates of food to the living room and put them on the coffee table. "We're going to eat here so I can watch a show."

"Sure!" Kirishima didn't argue with the set agenda for the night and followed him with an handful of chopsticks and a fork. "What are we going to watch?"

Bakugo turned on the television and ate a hotdog in two bites, then said with his mouth full, "It's a documentary about John Wayne Gacy. It's on the biography channel. My mom and me watch these but my dad is a big pussy and hides in his office."

"Oh who's that?" Kirishima sat next to him and Bakugo had a slightly uneasy feeling. He wasn't used to someone giving him their full attention and certainly wasn't used to entertaining anyone and it made his skin crawl. But Kirishima was so good natured that he usually didn't argue with what Bakugo wanted to do. Unless he had something more sociable in mind. Then they argued until Kirishima got his way.

"John Wayne Gacy was a serial killer from before people had quirks. They were like the villains they had back in the time before quirks. See, villains are nothing new. You always have these lame-ass losers who can't do anything in life so they go and kill and steal and shit like that because they can't win. You know?"

"Oh... okay..." Kirishima sat rubbing his big toe as Bakugo searched through the television channels.

"Stop touching your feet! Go wash your hands! You're going to eat!" Bakugo said and then realized he sounded exactly like his mother. "Or... don't wash your hands. Why the fuck do I care if you get some disease from your own fucking toe jam?"

"My feet are clean!" Kirishima protested and took a bite out of his hot dog.

Bakugo blinked as he watched Kirishima chew, confused. "Why are you eating your hotdog like that?! You just bit into it from the middle! You eat them from the end!"

"Says who?" Kirishima asked as he took another bite off the top of the hotdog. "Well... Kaminari said that watching people eat hotdogs looked like watching someone eat a dick and he thinks Americans are all gross because it's like their national food so I picture that every time I eat a hotdog now. So I try to eat it from the top. So that it doesn't look like eating a dick and Kaminari won't get grossed out."

Bakugo took a bite out of his hotdog. It wasn't very good but it was free. "Oh like Armin Meiwes?"

"Who is that? You know so much! Good thing you're my tutor."

Bakugo clicked the television remote until he brought up Youtube and found a documentary about Armin Meiwes. He made sure he faced away from Kirishima so that he didn't see his wicked smile. "Well, no shit, I know a lot. I can't be the number one hero if I'm a total nitwit. How about we watch something about that guy. I haven't seen this one."

Kirishima licked his fingers clean and nodded with chubby cheeks full of meat. "Sounds good to me! I need to study harder. I had a dream that I needed to rescue somebody when I became a pro hero and then I couldn't understand enough English from this American tourist to know where I needed to go and what to do and then All Might ran up to me and said that the person died and that I had to take a spelling test as punishment and I hadn't studied any of the words." Kirishima sighed and rubbed his toe again. "Hey I have even more meat. I have a ton of this ground up liver stuff. I don't know why they gave me so much of that."

Bakugo yawned as the program started with the grim title "Armin Meiwes: The Cannibal of Rotenburg."

As soon as the program title flashed on the screen Kirishima jumped up and ran to the kitchen. "I'm going to get more of my ground liver first! I need to get it gone!"

Bakugo suppressed evil giggles as he waited for him to return. Kirishima had a small pot of meat in one hand and scooped it out with a finger, then licked it off. "That's so gross..." Bakugo said vaguely, trying not to stare at him as he licked his own fingers.

Kirishima flopped on the couch next to him and silently watched the program. He stopped eating in mid bite as the television narrator told them the subject of the film gained sexual pleasure out of the idea eating someone else and looked into his pot of meat with a screwed up face. "I'm kind of full... Do you want this?" Kirishima held the pot of meat out at arm's length.

"I don't want that after you've been licking your hands and touching your feet! Just throw it out!" Bakugo observed Kirishima out of the corner of his eye, waiting for a reaction.

After fifteen minutes, when the program described the murder in detail, Kirishima visibly shifted in his seat and then scooted towards Bakugo a few inches. "This is so gross... What is wrong that guy? Oh my god! That guy ASKED to be eaten?! Did he realize that he'd be DEAD after their sex thing of cutting him up?!"

Bakugo shrugged. "Lots of people like weird shit like that I guess."

Kirishima was again rubbing his toe. "Do you?"

He thought for a second. "I don't think about sex at all. It's just a big waste of time. I could use that energy training. And romance is fucking stupid. It's just another person who holds you back from your goals and wants all your attention."

"Oh... okay..."

He suspected that Kirishima actually sounded disappointed. But Kirishima brightened up and said, "I want to have a family and be in love and stuff but I don't think I'll ever get married."

"EH?!" Bakugo didn't think that made any sense and didn't like being confused because he always wondered if it betrayed mental weakness on his part.

Kirishima didn't answer and just watched the show with wide horrified eyes. When the program said that the victim wanted his own penis amputated, he leapt to his feet and said more loudly than was necessary, "I HAVE TO PISS!"

Bakugo laughed and looked at pictures of motorcycles he wanted to buy when he finally became a pro hero while Kirishima stayed in the bathroom the remainder of the program. At exactly the end of the program he heard the toilet flush and Kirishima came back out of the bathroom. "Wow... uh... I drank a LOT of lemonade!"

"You coward! You just hid because you have a soft stomach!" Bakugo threw a small throw pillow at Kirishima's face.

It bounced harmlessly off Kirishima's nose and landed on the floor. He sat on the couch again but Bakugo noticed that he had a slight limp. "What's wrong with your toe anyway? You stubbed it didn't you? You klutz."

"I didn't do anything!" Kirishima snapped as he sat next to him. "What are you going to do?! Cut it off and eat it?!"

Bakugo looked at him for a second and said, "Dude... I promise I will never eat you. Why did I even have to say that out loud to you!? I just watch this shit so I can know how villains think! They're all a bunch of weak bastards who can't get what they want so they take it out on other people."

Kirishima sighed and laid his head on Bakugo's shoulder.

He didn't move and sat staring at the television as a show about another serial killer started, unsure of how to react to the physical affection. The wind picked up a bit and a tree branch knocked against the nearby window. Kirishima gasped with surprised and looked all around the room.

"It was the tree, dumbass... So are you going to get going?" Bakugo knew that if he waited until after they watched something creepy and it was dark outside that Kirishima would pretend he left his key at home and had to spend the night. He knew that and didn't understand why he never remembered to send him home early to prevent this or watched something more upbeat with him.

"You know, Bakugo..." Kirishima scratched the back of his head, his fingers in his now limp red hair. "I totally forgot my key at home! I don't want to scare my mom knocking late at night. So can I bunk here with you again? We can have another slumber party!"

"Slumber party? What are we? Five years old?!" Bakugo remembered Deku sleeping over when they were five years old and they pretended to sleep while watching All Might interviews on his dad's laptop under the blankets until Deku fell asleep in his footie pajamas and then wet the bed all over him. "I don't have damn slumber parties! I don't have time for that!" Bakugo held up a fist in Kirishima's face to prove the point that he didn't do anything fun or social if he could help it.

Kirishima laughed and put up his fists. "Want to fight about it?! Well what do we call it then? A manly bro bonding event!" A gust of wind blew the branch against the window again and Kirishima's already big eyes opened a bit wider.

"I told you that it's just the wind!" Bakugo opened the window just to make sure that his cousin wasn't sitting in the bushes scratching the window to be funny. He held up a palm in preparation to explode into the bushes but he didn't see anything.

"That's how all the horror movies start! You hear something creepy, then the hot guy says it's just the wind, then he opens the window and a zombie eats his arm!" Kirishima spoke a little faster than usual and his voice was half an octave higher.

Bakugo shut the window. "Fuck yeah I'd be the hot lead! You'd be... uh... Kaminari would be the idiot stoner that cracks jokes. That's for fucking sure. Who would be the hot blonde chick who gets her top off? We don't have one of those. It can be Hagakure so we don't have to see her tits." Bakugo laughed and turned out the living room lights, headed to his bedroom. "Are you coming or not?"

"I like this!" Kirishima said as he jogged after him. "Making our own horror movie cast! I don't know what I would be. I'd be the guy who gets bitten by the zombie right away I guess..."

"Fuck no! You'd be the guy who lives until the end! No wait... you'd be the dumbass who goes and feeds himself to zombies so fucking Deku can live even though he did nothing but cry all the time." Bakugo pulled off his shirt and rummaged in his dresser for clothes he thought would fit Kirishima. He pulled out black sweatpants and a plain black t-shirt and tosses them to Kirishima. "These might be a bit big on you."

"We need more girls in our movie. I mean to be fair. Not in a... Mineta way. Uraraka could make the zombies all float away!" He caught the clothes and stood there laughing.

"Get changed, dumbass!" Bakugo stripped off his pants and threw them onto the top of the trash layer on the bedroom floor.

Kirishima cleared his throat and turned his back to Bakugo before taking off his shirt.

"What's the big deal. You've seen me naked loads of times!" Bakugo turned his back to Kirishima as he took off his boxers and stepped into a fresh pair.

"Hey we need a zombie master in our movie. There needs to be a bad guy..."

"DEKU!" Bakugo said loudly with an aggressive growl.

"But you already said he was the guy who lives. How can he be the zombie master too?"

"He was a spy for the zombies! After everybody dies he'll get out his zombie talisman and they'll all fall down dead and he'll go, 'It's done! You finally killed them all and I'm the number one hero!'" Bakugo imitated an evil cackle.

"Wow you do that villain laugh thing really well, man... That does seem like Midoriya though. Wouldn't he try to give all the zombies counseling or something? Like get them all to join a self help group for brain eaters?" Kirishima laughed and Bakugo heard him leap onto the bed.

Bakugo pulled his shirt over his head and then fished around in a desk drawer for his medication, which he couldn't find under the layers of old pencils and school papers. "GOD FUCKING DAMMIT WHERE IS IT?!"

"Where is what? What me to look?" Kirishima asked as he laid in bed on his back, looking up at the ceiling with his arms crossed behind his head.

"You don't know what to look for and I don't need fucking help looking for my own fucking medication in my own fucking room! Lean over the side of the bed. Is it there? Between the bed and wall?"

Kirishima rolled over and peaked at the crack between the wall and the bed. "You mean this pill bottle?"

Bakugo leapt across the room and grabbed the pill bottle as fast as he could manage.

"You don't need to know what it is! Are you nosy like Deku now?!" Bakugo dry swallowed a pill and threw the pill bottle into his dirty laundry pile.

Kirishima moved closer to the wall to make room for Bakugo. "Hey I can sleep in the guest room if you want. Like... you always tell me to sleep in here but I can go in there if you want."

"We're just going to sleep. Why the fuck do I care where you are when we're just sleeping? And I'd have to fuck around making the bed before the old nag got home if you slept in the guest room." Bakugo slid under the covers and turned off the lamp before relaxing with a big yawn.

Kirishima didn't answer and Bakugo wondered how he could fall asleep so fast. Especially when he was afraid of zombies scratching at the windows five minutes earlier. Bakugo rolled over back and forth a few times, unable to get comfortable. He realized that Kirishima was half in the rut of the mattress that he'd worn down and that he was on an awkward slope towards the middle of the bed. He looked at Kirishima, who lay next to him. He stared at Kirishima as he slept with his mouth slightly open and his hair all over the pillow. What a pretty boy, he thought. For having a hardening quirk, he sure was soft and pretty. He reached out towards Kirishima to brush his hair off of his forehead, but hesitated. What was he doing? If Bakugo woke up and found someone petting his hair he'd explode their face off. He rolled over hard and tried to convince himself that he was tired.

* * *

Bakugo ran down the corridor as the green haired zombie cried out, "Kacchan! Kacchan!" He knew that if he made it to the butcher's shop at the end of the corridor he'd be safe. But the butcher stand and the big glowing sign over top that read RED RIBBON MEATS kept drifting further away until it was the size of a half-eaten meatball. The green haired zombie ran faster, always at his heals, even though its flesh hung in rotten strips from its annoyingly small frame as it lumbered slowly behind him, muttering, "Kacchan is running away from me even though he used to bully me. It can only mean that he isn't really as tough as he says he is. I need to buy a fourteenth hero notebook. This one is full and I've only written down Kacchan's faults and weaknesses. Maybe I should start a side series to analyze Kacchan's failure. BRAINS."

"Why are you catching up so fast!" Bakugo shouted uselessly as he braced, feeling the zombie's fetid grip on the back of his shirt. As the zombie inevitably sank its teeth into the back of Bakugo's muscular neck, he realized it would run past him eventually and reach RED RIBBON MEATS and win first place in the All Might Fanboy Contest.

Bakugo opened his eyes, now awake, just a second before he would have seen the green haired zombie in his dream. He felt the dread fade away, processed the silly images as he lay on his back looking at the ceiling and inwardly berated himself for being so afraid of something so ridiculous. He hoped he never ran into a villain with a mind reading quirk. If a villain read his mind and then mocked him for having to sleep on flame retardant sheets he'd just kill them twice.

He glanced over at Kirishima, who lay a few inches away on the other side of the bed. Kirishima's face was illuminated by a ray of moonlight coming in the window. Bakugo leaned over to examine Kirishima's face and realized that his forehead was covered in beads of sweat and his face was pinched up into a small scowl. He wondered if he should wake him and spent a few minutes staring at Kirishima's pained expression with no conclusion in mind as to what he should or shouldn't do.

Kirishima twitched and groaned, then opened his eyes.

Bakugo opened his mouth to ask if Kirishima was okay, but didn't get any words out and watched him instead.

"Oh... ow..." Kirishima kicked at the blanket with one of his feet, but didn't move otherwise. But his groaning intensified and Bakugo shushed him without thinking.

"What? My foot fucking hurts, man!" Kirishima said as he sat up and wiped off the sweat. "Did you lay on me?!"

"Fuck no! And my parents are home and I didn't think they should hear you moaning and groaning or something." Bakugo felt his face instantly heat up. "I mean... they'd haul your whiny ass to the hospital!" He hoped that was an adequate recovery and he didn't realize that he had momentarily fostered fear that his parents might think something sexual was occurring in his room.

"I need to stand up..." Kirishima said as he shifted towards Bakugo, pushing on his arm to indicate that he should let him out of the bed.

Bakugo just got out of bed and stared at his pained friend. "What the fuck is wrong with you? You woke me up!" he said.

"My foot hurts! I think I broke my leg in my sleep!" Kirishima's cheeks glowed red and as soon as he sat on the edge of the bed and attempted to put weight on his feet to stand, he fell right back down again with a shout. "Oh my god! What's wrong with my leg! Did you roll over on me!?"

"Why the fuck would I do that?! I don't weigh that much! Just quit bitching and lay down!"

Then Bakugo noticed that Kirishima was crying silently. Maybe he really was hurt. How could he break his leg lying in bed. He checked the window to make sure it was locked, then muttered to himself, "Of course a villain didn't break in just to break his goddam leg. Who am I to think something that stupid? Fucking Deku? Well what does your mom do when you're hurt or sick or what-the-fuck-ever you are right now?"

"Uh…" Kirishima gasped with pain as he changed position on the bed. "Oh she uh… she'll hold me and sing old lullabies to me and make me soup and hot tea and fluff up the pillows and give me a hot water bottle or an electric blanket and orange juice and pray to the ancestors to heal me and play what I want to watch on television and have me take a hot bath with aromatherapy bath salts and give me medicine. Just stuff like that. And I totally don't like it because none of it is manly!" he added loudly at the end. Bakugo thought, Red Riot doth protest too much.

"Well I'm not doing any of that shit! My mom just smacks me upside the head and tells me to drink some water and change my socks!" Bakugo said glowering with crossed arms, hoping that his tough stance encouraged instant healing.

"I'm fine…" Kirishima said with a voice thick with pain and tears, clearly indicating that he was not alright.

Bakugo put his hands in his pockets and headed towards the bathroom. "I gotta piss…" He grabbed his phone off the bureau as he retreated to the porcelain sanctuary and kicked a layer of dirty black athletic clothing away from the toilet so he could sit on the seat and use it as a chair. Bakugo had never had a friend let alone a sick friend and definitely not a crying friend. Deku cried all the time but he wasn't his friend so he didn't care.

He pulled out his phone and Googled "how to help a sick person." Then he scowled at the glowing screen as he read that you should hold them, sing to them, make them hot soup, make them hot tea, fluff… He shut off his browser and said to himself, "Fucking Google answers. People making shit up!"

Then he Googled "how to help a crying person." Google answers informed him that he should do pretty much the same things he'd been instructed to do for a sick person only with more verbal encouragement and physical affection. He shuddered at the idea of physical affection and then tried to remember back to his childhood when his mother had given him any. The closest he came was when she'd held him around the waist after he bit a photographer when she'd tried to get him into child modeling.

"You okay in there?" Kirishima asked from just outside the door. He sounded like someone had kicked him in the nutsack.

Bakugo jumped up and opened the door. "What are you doing walking around?!"

"You were in there for a long time and I wanted to make sure you were okay," Kirishima said. He winced slightly with every word and Bakugo realized that Kirishima's face was covered in sweat. His pale skin made his red hair stand out even more.

"What do you mean am I okay? You're the one who can't even talk without pain. Just go lay down!" Bakugo leaned in and shouted the command into Kirishima's face for emphasis. Maybe if he were really forceful he wouldn't have to do any of that babying shit in the Google articles.

Kirishima didn't move. "I'm cool. I'm good. A true hero should be able to endure any pain. Especially if it isn't from even a real injury. It's just sore, man."

Why did he even care if this guy was sweating and wincing in agony? If he wanted to suffer that was his prerogative. Kirishima leaned against a bureau with a loud sigh and Bakugo realized that he'd spent several seconds just staring at Kirishima's face and wondering why he was so pretty. He grabbed Kirishma around the waist suddenly and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of flour and hauled him across the room. "You're going to lay down and shut up, dammit! I'm going to take care of you or else kill you! Got it!"

"Yeah, okay..." Kirishima said weakly from over Bakugo's shoulder, a puff of warm breath hitting Bakugo on the shoulder blade. "I guess I won't feel the pain if I'm dead anyway..."

Bakugo stopped himself before he flung Kirishima on the bed like a dead fish and tried to lay him down as gently as he could manage.

"I don't understand how I hurt my foot like this. I don't remember hitting it or anything!" Kirishima lay on his back on the bed, his eyes shut tightly as he clenched his teeth through the pain.

Bakugo sat on the bed next to him and held a hand out, hovering over Kirishima's arm. Should he pat him? Hug him? He reclined against the headboard, putting his pillow behind his back as a cushion. Kirishima could just suck it up if he planned on being a hero. Bakugo wasn't going to pamper him every time he got an injury. If he did he'd have to hug him and make him soup every single day for the rest of their lives. "Well maybe it isn't an injury like that." He pulled his phone out of his pocket again and looked up symptoms of foot pain. As soon as the webpage loaded Bakugo's eyes narrowed and he glared at Kirishima, who lay groaning next to him on his back. "What have you been eating lately?"

"Uh... I've been eating tons of meat. It's all free, dude. My mom won't eat it and I have a duty as the representative of Red Ribbon Meats to faithfully eat their products! Ouch!" He raised a fist enthusiastically as he promoted Red Ribbon Meats and then cried out in pain.

"You moron! You haven't had any vegetables or grain or anything for weeks?! You have gout! It's from eating meat with lots of uric acid."

Kirishima's big eyes got even bigger. "They put URINE in their meat?! I have to go to the press and let them know that they need to stop eating Red Ribbon Meat!"

Bakugo flicked Kirishima's forehead. "No dip shit! It's from eating too much liver!"

"Oh... I've been eating liver at every meal..." Kirishima pursed his lips into an angry little pout. Bakugo nearly smiled at his adorable rage and instead glared at him. Good thing the room was dark and Kirishima couldn't see the momentary flash of affection. "You need to go to the doctor tomorrow. First thing in the morning... Okay first thing Monday morning you're making an appointment at your doctor and you're going whether or not I have to carry your ass there!"

"I can't! If the media finds out that Red Riot of Red Ribbon Meats got sick from eating meat they'll go after my sponsor! The guys at Red Ribbon said that the media has had it out for meat for years!" Kirishima said.

Bakugo just stared for a few seconds, marveling at Kirishima's ability to be so stupid. At least he hadn't ever bought a breast pump just because he saw people standing in line to buy one, assuming it would be trendy. Damn Kaminari. Bakugo leaned over and pulled out a pill bottle from the bedside table, opened it and tipped a pill into his palm. "Here. Take this. I know you're not supposed to take somebody else's medication but this will help the pain for tonight."

"Don't I get any water? What is that medicine anyway?" Kirishima took the pill in his palm and looked at it.

Bakugo sighed and fetched a glass of water from the bathroom. "You can't just dry swallow it? I thought you were a man!" he said as he handed the glass of water to Kirishima. "And none of your business what kind of medicine it is! Just take it, fucking goddam it!"

Kirishima put the pill in his mouth and reached for the glass without question.

Bakugo pulled the glass out of his reach. "What?! You're just going to take strange medicine without knowing what it is first?! You dumbass!"

"But you just told me to! Just tell me what it is or let me have it or I'll…." Kirishima's big red eyes filled up with tears and he clenched his eyes shut and said loudly, "I'm so sorry, Bakugo! It isn't manly to be in pain or to cry!"

"This is just pain medication…" Bakugo said. "Stop your crying and just take it. I have it in case I use my quirk too much and it hurts my arms. Just don't you fucking tell anyone!"

Kirishima blinked and took the glass of water, swallowing the pill. "Oh I'm sorry. I promise I won't! On my honor as a man!"

Bakugo rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. Why was Kirishima just staring up at him with big doe eyes? "Just lay down and it'll kick in soon. Let's try to get some sleep."

They lay in the dark for a while and Bakugo tried to ignore the little sniffs every few seconds from a few inches away. After a few minutes Kirishima said quietly, "Bakugo… if I die I want you to have my Crimson Riot plush toy. It's in my closet. I've had it since I was a baby. It has a funky smell because I used to drool on it a lot."

He wrinkled up his face and nearly protested that he didn't want some old piece of junk that he'd sucked on as a baby, but he knew it would hurt his feelings. "You're not dying, idiot."

Kirishima didn't answer right away.

After a few minutes Bakugo followed up with a questioning, "Eh?!" sort of inquisitive grunt.

Kirishima let out a few light snores in response.

Bakugo fell asleep shortly after and had a dream that he went mountain climbing and found a three legged fawn with big red eyes. When he went to went to pet it, Aizawa materialized and told him that he had decided to retire so that he could sell designer sleeping bags and that Kaminari was going to teach the class. Bakugo woke up briefly and vaguely felt Kirishima's sweaty forehead against his cheek but didn't move away.

* * *

Bakugo spent the whole school day Monday wanting to look at the classroom door for Kirishima but didn't want to look like he was looking at the door for Kirishima. So instead he just waited to hear everyone exclaim excitedly like morons when he entered the doorway. But nobody ever said anything except, "Gee, I wonder where Kirishima is today. I hope he's okay!"

At lunch Bakugo tried to sit by himself and as usual Kaminari, Sero and Ashido all joined him as he loudly complained that he didn't want them around. "I don't need morons pissing me off while I try to eat!" he barked as Kaminari leaned over to watch a girl from General Studies walk past. "Hey, Bakugo, check out that girl that just walked by. What do you rate her?"

"Nothing!" he shouted as he took the opportunity to roll his eyes with irrigation in the direction of the dining room door. "You and that grape idiot need to get castrated so you can focus on killing people on the battlefield!"

"Hey, Kacchan?" Kaminari asked poking a brown paper sack that sat on the table in front of Bakugo's lunch tray with a chopstick. "What's that? Did a girl give this to you?!"

"No! Leave it the fuck alone! Go die!" Bakugo grabbed the package and couldn't think of anywhere else to put it so he pushed it away at arm's length. "Don't ask me questions! And stop sitting with me!"

"But we're the only ones who'll sit with you," Sero said. He leaned causally on the table on his elbows, then in a quick movement, flung a strip of tape at the paper bag, attempting to pull it towards himself. "Gotcha! Can't hide things from your friends, Bakugo!"

"Is it from a girl?!" Mina said with her cheeks stuffed with rice. "I don't know what girl would want to give you anything but still… Romance! I love romance! It's so cute that a girl has a crush on you! I hope you didn't blow her up!"

In one quick movement, Bakugo raised a palm popping with nitroglycerin and slammed Sero's arm on the table. The tape flew randomly through the air and a landed on Ashido's head.

She pulled at it as it stuck fast to her pink hair. "Not cool!"

"I was just curious," Sero muttered, his face pressed into the table.

Just as Bakugo was going to dramatically grab his lunch and his paper sack and tell them he'd rather eat in the men's room than with their annoying asses, he heard a general outcry from a few tables down. "Kirishima!" It was Deku… How dare that nerd see Kirishima first! Bakugo released Sero and ate with ferocity, ignoring everyone around him.

"Hi, Midoriya," Kirishima said. Bakugo wasn't sure but he didn't sound normal. He sounded other-than-happy.

Bakugo ate his food as if he were starving and blocked out the concern and Kirishima's response with a buzz of hysterical deafness. Why did he care? If the idiot hadn't been so stupid that…

Then he realized that he'd been eating for several seconds while Kirishima stood right next to him, watching him. "EH?!" Bakugo demanded. "What do you want, you fucking extra?! You can't even come to school on time?!"

Kirishima sighed. "I had to go to the doctor. Can you move so I can sit down. I'm not supposed to stand for very long."

Bakugo moved over still hunched over his empty tray. "So what did they say. Did your foot fall off?"

He looked up in surprise when he heard Kirishima clatter against the table as he sat down and finally noticed that he was using a pair of crutches and just blinked at them for several seconds. Kirishima sat with his head hung sadly, a veil of red hair covering his face. "What's the matter with your hair? It's all down and shit."

Kirishima took a long pathetic breath. "I don't deserve to put my hair up if I can't walk without support. I'm not a hero or a man now. I'm just a guy on crutches who can't eat anything but rice. So what's the point of eating or doing my hair or being a hero. I lost my endorsement from Red Ribbon Meats."

"Well good riddance! Those assholes nearly made your foot fall off!" Bakugo shouted. "Get back and Plus Ultra that gel shit in your hair after lunch! Well I thought you'd be a big wimp about this shit so I brought you a lunch. You gotta eat to get back on your feet so I can kill you in practice." Bakugo set the paper bag in front of Kirishima. "Well open it up!" He realized that he sounded like an over-eager little girl. "What the fuck do I care! Throw it away if you don't want it while you sit and whine and feel sorry for yourself like fucking Deku!"

Kirishima pulled the bag closer and peaked inside. "You don't need to bring Midoriya into this, man. Hey…" Kirishima pulled out a neatly wrapped bento box wrapped in plain white paper and tied shut with a red string. "Hey! It's Red Riot themed! Oh no… who gave me this? Was it Jirou…? I need to give it back!" Kirishima glanced frantically around in the cafeteria. "You know that a girl giving you a bento box means she likes you! Oh… is this yours? Well… lucky guy…" Kirishima said it with an amused tone but he frowned sadly while saying it. He nudged the box back towards Bakugo.

"You idiot…" Bakugo said as he felt himself warm up with a blush. "I made that for you! I thought you'd either eat nothing or else you'd bring more of the same shit you'd been eating in the first place!"

"OH MY GOD!" a loud voice cracked behind them. It was that Monoma maniac who could copy quirks and has taunted Bakugo during the sport's festival. He was not a victim! Stupid copy cat Monoma.

Bakugo lit up a hand with a few pops in warning. "GET AWAY, FREAK! NOT IN THE MOOD!" Monoma never did take a hint. Bakugo had heard a rumor that Monoma had tried to copy a quirk that allowed someone to create liquid mercury and he'd gotten mercury poisoning and been addled ever since. Bakugo tended to believe it. "What do you want, Mad Hatter!"

Monoma laughed like a villain in a cheap anime show. "You made a bento box for another BOY?! I get it now! Bakugo Katsuki, the swaggering testosterone filled best boy of Class 1A! It's all a cover! You're just a secret per…"

Bakugo glanced sideways at Kirishima and his thumped uncomfortably with an unwanted realized. Kirishima had the bento box in both hands just staring at it with a red face. But he had tears in his eyes again and this time Bakugo was pretty sure it wasn't from gout pain. He didn't answer Monoma's taunting and quietly ate a bit of carrot. "Thanks, Katsuki."

He hadn't realized it would mean so much to Kirishima. It didn't matter if it had been a romantic gesture. It made Kirishima happy and now Monoma had to die. Bakugo jumped to his feet, grabbed a crutch and slammed it over Monoma's head, then blasted him at point blank range, screaming, "AP SHOT! COPY THAT, YOU BASTARD!"

He didn't know if it had been because Monoma was surprised or wanted sympathy for nearly calling his classmates perverts in front of witnesses but he flew against a wall and fell into a limp and crumpled pile.

"BAKUGO'S FINALLY LOST IT! WHAT WAS OUR CONTINGENCY PLAN AGAIN?!" Kaminari screamed at Sero, who had his elbow loaded with tape like gun and aimed at Bakugo. "DAMN IT! WHY DID THE PLAN HAVE TO RELY ON A TRANQUILIZER GUN WHEN NONE OF US HAVE ONE!"

* * *

Obviously, the teachers intervened. Monoma was taken to Recovery Girl and Bakugo was removed to detention. Kirishima limped after him on his crutches with his bento box in his hands and sat at the desk next to him. Kirishima had asked Aizawa permission to keep Bakugo company during his detention. "I don't care. Just be quiet. I suppose you can't train on your foot anyway." Then he zipped himself up inside his sleeping bag and ate a sandwich while encased in cotton.

"What is this grey blob in the middle of my bento box?" Kirishima asked quietly.

"It's supposed to be a rock!" Bakugo said as he did his math homework, someone relieved to be in a quiet classroom and away from judgmental classmates. "It's a rock like you are! You're a hard rock! And I didn't make it pretty because food doesn't have to look pretty. It has the same nutrients either way. Are you going to eat it or not?"

He glanced at Kirishima as he erased an incorrect answer and noticed a few drops of water on the desk. Kirishima's cheeks were wet. Bakugo froze and stared at his unfinished math problem unseeing. He reached over and patted the little tear drops on the desk dry with his sleeve without thinking. He pulled the bento box out of Kirishima's book bag and set it in front of him. "Eat," Bakugo said gruffly. "You need to get you better so we can spar. Then we can both kick Copy Cat's ass together." He smiled and nudged Kirishima and then realized he'd never encouraged anyone in his life. But Kirishima was worth breaking personal tradition.

"Right!" Kirishima said with a voice full of tears and mucus. He picked up the chopsticks and ate a starving person. "Because we're a team!"

"Damn right. Now quit your bitching so I can study."

Kirishima smiled as he ate and Bakugo blandly did homework as Aizawa told them to be quiet because Bakugo was being punished. Not that he cared what they did. As long as he could sleep through it.


End file.
